Cry of the Ghost Wolf con-3

by Mark Sehesdedt

  Hweilan hung her head. Her hair fell over her face, and she closed her eyes. Gleed had taught her many things beyond the sacred rites of Nendawen and the properties of plants and herbs and roots. When lessons were over, his talk would sometimes turn to other matters. Hweilan soon learned that he held little love for his goblin forebears and their ways, and he sometimes lost himself in particularly long rants about goblinkind and their stupid, narrow, backward customs. Many times, Hweilan had let her mind wander, but when he spoke of their rituals and beliefs, she paid close attention, and even prodded him with an occasional question. As a young girl who had often grown frustrated with the strict rules of her own Damaran household, she developed an interest in the ways of other peoples. And so, yet again, Gleed’s lessons proved useful.

  She raised her head, looked Buureg in the eye, and said, “Your Champion demands Blood Slake of the Hand. Let it be done. But the Hand demands Blood Price of the Razor Heart.”

  Buureg blinked and took a step back, surprised by her words, then looked to Maaqua.

  The old crone smiled, but her eyes went feral. “Watch this one, Buureg. She’s a crafty fox. One of Gleed’s little monsters. Probably knows our ways better than you do.”

  Buureg said, “If she accepts the Blood Slake, we must honor the Blood Price. Honor demands-”

  “Piss on honor!” said Maaqua. She leaned in close to Hweilan. “Enough with your mummer’s show, girl. Speak. What do you want?”

  Hweilan raised her voice and spoke in her most formal Goblin. “I am the Hand of the Hunter. I will stand, and the Razor Heart may have my blood, if they can take it. But if they cannot, I demand my life, the lives of my four companions, and all our belongings be returned to us. Life for life. Death for death. If I win, you will set us free as you found us. I demand nothing more than what is mine.”

  She could have asked for more. By all rights, she could have demanded the Razor Heart Champion’s sword. But had she done that, Hweilan knew that she very likely would have met with a fatal accident long before she could face Rhan.

  Buureg looked to Maaqua. His face betrayed no emotion.

  The queen shrugged. “Rhan will make short work of her. It hardly matters.”

  Buureg said, “You and the three in the hole will have your lives, your belongings, and your freedom. The big one killed Ruuket’s mate. His life is not mine to spare. All the rest, you shall have-if you win.”

  “So be it,” said Hweilan.

  Buureg sighed, then reached into his sleeve and withdrew a black dagger. “Hand of the Hunter, do you swear to stay your hand against the Razor Heart and abide in peace by our fires until life or death be decided?”

  Hweilan kept her gaze fixed on Maaqua-she was the dangerous one. Rhan held no fear for her. Nor even Buureg and his brutes. Hweilan knew their kind. They would not hesitate to kill her, but they would do so openly, wanting to look her in the eye as they did it. Maaqua was an adder in the cleft, hidden by shadows.

  “I do,” said Hweilan. “In the name of Nendawen, Master of the Hunt, I so swear. May his wrath strike me down if I break this vow.”

  “So be it,” said Buureg. He spared another glance to Maaqua, then he bent and cut away Hweilan’s bonds.

  “Someone’s coming,” said Valsun, startling Darric out of his doze.

  Both men stood. Darric could hear it, too. Footsteps above, and the occasional clank of metal.

  “Think they’ve come to feed us?” said Darric. They hadn’t eaten since that night in the mountains when Hweilan’s wolf had brought them the ram.

  This roused Jaden. He didn’t sit up from his bed of blankets, but his eyes widened and he looked up expectantly.

  “In armor?” said Valsun. “Not likely.”

  At the rim of the pit, a helmeted silhouette came into view, looking down on them. Then another.

  “Damn all of you!” Valsun shouted. “Either feed us or kill us!”

  The two warriors above glanced at each other. One said something Darric could not understand, then they both disappeared.

  “At least give us water!” Darric said.

  No answer.

  “They’re still up there,” said Valsun. “I can hear them. And more than two.”

  Another shape came into view. Unhelmeted, her long hair was tossed by the breeze.

  “Hweilan?” said Darric, disbelieving.

  “Are you hurt?” she called.

  A warm flood of relief washed over Darric. She was alive. That meant they might not be doomed after all.

  “Half starved and more than half frozen,” Valsun called up. “And Jaden has convinced himself he’s dying, but I fear the gods have not blessed us that far.”

  There was a sharp clank from the other side of the wall, and the bars overhead began to slide into the stone.

  “They are going to get you out,” said Hweilan. “But I am bid to tell you that you are bound to behave yourselves. I have spoken for you. Try anything foolish, and I am sworn to kill you myself.”

  Darric and Valsun exchanged a concerned look.

  “What’s happening up there, lady?” said Valsun.

  The last of the bars disappeared into the wall, and the same rope that had hauled Hweilan out earlier fell into the pit.

  “I’ll explain everything up here. Let’s get you warm and fed first.”

  “I’m not sure Jaden can climb,” Darric called up to her.

  One of the hobgoblin warriors looked down the hole. “Tie it round his ankles! We’ll drag ’im up!”

  “Oh, gods,” Jaden moaned as he rolled in his blankets. “Help me, for pity’s sake.”

  “Help yourself,” said Valsun and nudged him with his boot. “Get that loop under your arms, or I swear on my mother’s name I’ll tie the damned thing around your neck.”

  Darric went up first. He had to squint and blink as he came up into the full daylight. But when he could finally open his eyes, he saw three hobgoblins pulling on the rope; another eight warriors, all armed; and four more with bows crouched on the rocks overhead.

  Hweilan stood apart from the warriors, her dark hair unbound. The right sleeve of her shirt was gone, and she wore no coat. Not even a cloak. But she seemed completely unbothered by the cold.

  “Hweilan,” Darric said, then stopped. He’d been about to say are you well? But it was obvious she was. Not a scratch on her. The skin on her right arm had an oddly pale patch, and something about the tattoo there looked odd, but then she caught him staring.

  “Yes?” she said sharply.

  Darric blushed. “I’m … uh, grateful. For getting us out. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she said, then turned away.

  Stung, Darric turned to watch as Jaden half-stumbled and was half-dragged out of the pit. As he cleared the lip of stone, blinking against the light, two hobgoblins grabbed his shirt, hauled him out, and dumped him on the ground. The scrawny Damaran had somehow managed to keep one of the blankets wrapped around his shoulders during the ordeal.

  As the two hobgoblins got Jaden out of the rope, he looked to Hweilan. “Next time you plan on dropping a hobgoblin on a fellow’s head, you might want to let him know.”

  “Stop whining,” she said. “I told you to be ready.”

  When Valsun came out of the pit, he shrugged his way out of the rope, and by the way he was studying their surroundings, Darric knew the old knight was weighing their chances of escape. His grim expression a moment later showed that he’d come to the same conclusion Darric had.

  Hweilan looked down at Jaden, who was still sitting on the ground, shivering despite his blanket. Then she walked over to Valsun and gave his bruised and battered face a critical look. She spared Darric only a quick glance, then turned to one of the hobgoblins and said, “Get Kaad. Tell him these men need some gunhin.”

  All the warriors around them erupted in laughter, and a few of them even hooted and pounded their chests.

  “Which one needs it the most, eh?” said one of the warriors, a
nd the others hooted even louder.

  Darric had no idea what was going on, but nothing could have shocked him more than what he saw next. Hweilan gave him the briefest of glances, blushed like a maiden caught bathing, then turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Everything had been prepared, just as his master ordered. It had not been easy. Vazhad had expected to find something in the dungeons of Highwatch that suited their needs. He had heard that Yarin the Usurper had special advisors who designed ways to torture and kill his prisoners in the most painful ways. But there was nothing. The dungeons were simply cells with stout doors. Vandalar had apparently been a softer kind of ruler. He did not even have iron rings in the walls from which to hang particularly troublesome occupants.

  But some of the last remaining Creel had found something-near the stables of all places. Not up in the high aeries where the knights had kept their scythe wings but in the bottom-most area of the fortress, where the Damarans had housed their horses.

  A narrow alley that smelled of manure snaked along the mountainside to a high-walled yard. A stone basin lay near the farthest wall. A sluice led out of the wall. Far too small to allow anyone to enter the fortress, it was wide enough that blood and muck could be rinsed out from the cattle slaughters. Vazhad had watched it once. Jatara and Kadrigul had brought him, for the process amused them.

  The Damarans would lead the cow or ox down the alley-dragging it the last stretch as the beast caught the scent of blood and animal remains. It had been a young bull ox on the day Vazhad was present.

  Two iron rings had been affixed to either side of the basin. Vazhad had watched four servants pull and prod the screaming animal into the basin. The ox had a thick harness around its throat, almost like a leash. And only this leash had two leads of strong rope. Two men bound the rope into the rings, then stood back as the ox bucked and kicked, its hooves making a terrible racket against the stone basin. But it had been unable to break free. The servants stepped well away, and a stout man, short but with the muscles of a lifelong blacksmith, stepped to the edge of the basin. He’d worn a bright red wool tunic, and in his right hand he carried an iron-headed mallet.

  Seeing the man stepping so close, the ox had charged. But the ropes pulled taut and stopped the charge just shy of the basin’s edge-and within reach of the mallet. The man brought it round, hitting the ox right between the eyes, and down it went.

  At the time, Vazhad had wondered if the beast was truly dead or merely struck senseless. But it hardly mattered. The other servants came forward with their knives to bleed and skin the carcass. And Vazhad watched as the red liquid flowed down the sluice.

  There was still time until full dark, but the yard’s walls kept out most of the light, so Vazhad had ordered torches lit. He suspected they were some of the last in the fortress, but that would hardly matter before long. If he spent much more time walking in darkness, his nerves would snap, and he needed them to hold. Just a little longer.

  Looking at the basin in the orange torchlight, Vazhad suspected that the Damarans, who were nothing if not obsessively clean, had washed, scrubbed, and sanded the basin after each use. But years of slaughter had stained the stone black. There was no mistaking it for anything but a place of murder.

  However, this was no ox they were bringing here, and Vazhad did not trust even the stoutest ropes in the fortress. The Creel had bolted a steel chain to each iron ring, and from the end of each chain hung a manacle.

  Vazhad heard the others approaching behind him, and he stepped aside.

  The alley leading to the yard had been made purposefully narrow so that cattle had no room to turn around. Two men could have walked side-by-side had they wished, but the newcomers walked into the yard single file.

  The thing that had once been Guric came first. His feet were bare, but he wore new clothes. Vazhad wondered what had happened to the old ones. Probably they had become so stained and sodden with blood that they had fallen off him. He didn’t even glance at Vazhad as he passed.

  His master came next. The cowl of his hood was down, showing his hairless, blue-mottled head, and by the strength in his stride and the fact that he did not flinch from the torchlight, Vazhad knew that he was looking upon Jagun Ghen.

  He looked at Vazhad, and for a moment the torchlight caught in his eyes, making him look very much like one of the undead baazuled whose black gazes were lit with a tiny spark of fire. But then he looked to the basin. “Well done,” he said. “Well done, indeed. This suits our purposes perfectly.”

  Two more baazuled came next-one a Creel Vazhad had never known, even in life; the other a Damaran who Vazhad thought seemed vaguely familiar. The Creel was carrying a leather bag that sagged with a heavy weight.

  Behind them, Kathkur strode into the yard. The muscles in the eladrin’s face were pulled taut, his left eye twitched incessantly, and the symbol gouged into his forehead flickered with a flamelike light. Kathkur ignored Vazhad, for his eyes were fixed on the basin and the chains that lay there. “What is this?” he asked.

  Three others entered the yard behind him-two more baazuled and the Damaran that Yarin had sent. Vazhad searched his memory for the name. Thudreg? Thidrek? Something like that. He had been the first of the living vessels seized by Jagun Ghen’s brother as a new home. The symbol on his forehead was different than that on the eladrin, and Vazhad wondered if it had something to do with the demon’s name. But it flickered with the same unsettling light.

  “This,” said Jagun Ghen, pointing at the basin, “is a necessary discomfort. Your host is becoming … a nuisance. But an intriguing one. I need to speak to him. But I want him to behave himself when I do so.”

  Kathkur stopped walking and fell into a crouch. His eyes flitted back and forth. “You mean-”

  “You said this one keeps … ‘squirming out’ of your grip, I believe you said. We cannot have that.”

  Kathkur looked back to the alleyway, but the three who had followed him in were blocking the way. “Please … I can control him, lord. I-”

  Jagun Ghen cut him off, “Of all our brethren who have come into the world, only this one has managed to resist us. I must know why.”

  “I-I won’t go back. I-”

  “You will do as I say. I am not sending you anywhere, Brother. After all I have sacrificed to bring you here? I would never do that. But I need you to … relent on this one. Just for a short time.”

  “B-but his screams …”

  Jagun Ghen laid a hand on the eladrin’s shoulder. With another, this might have been seen as an attempt at comfort or reassurance. But Vazhad saw how the fingers tightened, the thumb almost tearing the skin.

  “Let us hear those screams, Brother,” said Jagun Ghen. “Just for a while.”

  Kathkur shook his head. “I-”

  He tried to pull away, but Jagun Ghen tightened his grip, and two baazuled stepped forward, grabbing the eladrin’s arms.

  “No!” Kathkur shrieked. “Please, lord! I-”

  But then he lost all words-at least in any language Vazhad had ever heard. The eladrin thrashed and kicked and screamed as the baazuled dragged him into the basin. The symbol on his forehead flared, and inky smoke slithered down onto his face.

  The baazuled fixed the shackles to the eladrin’s wrists and stepped away. Kathkur’s arms were stretched straight out. The chains were almost too short, but they kept his thrashing under control. He couldn’t even stand fully upright, only managing a low crouch. Still, it did not stop him from trying, and his wrists were already torn and bleeding.

  The Creel baazuled with the leather bag stepped forward, and again Vazhad remembered the man in the red tunic stepping forward to smash the skull of the ox. The baazuled held the bottom of the bag and let the top fall, upending the contents. A brass collar fell to the dust. The torchlight winked on symbols that had been etched into its surface.

  Jagun Ghen said, “Put it on him.”

  Kathkur’s eyes widened, he cried even louder, and the tear
s streaming down his cheeks began to steam and mix with the foul miasma leaking from the rune on his forehead.

  The baazuled approached Kathkur from behind to avoid his flailing kicks. Still, Kathkur twisted his head and tried to bite, but the baazuled did his business quickly, bending the brass just wide enough to allow the eladrin’s neck to pass through, then squeezing it shut again. As soon as the ends came together, every symbol on the collar’s surface blazed red. The baazuled took a few steps back but remained in the basin.

  Jagun Ghen stepped forward until the toe of his boot touched the stone rim. “Kathkur,” he said, calm as if he were beginning a conversation over the evening table.

  The eladrin stopped screaming, fell to his knees, and stared treason at his master.

  “That’s better,” said Jagun Ghen. “The sooner you relent, the sooner this will be over, and we can release you.”

  “The”-Kathkur spoke through a jaw clenched so tightly that his entire head was trembling-“the … c-collar!”

  “Intended for the eladrin, not you. Let me speak to him. Now.”

  “N-no. No, I won’t. I … can’t!”

  Jagun Ghen reached inside the sleeve of his robe and withdrew a rod. Scarcely longer than a man’s hand, Vazhad saw that it was made of brass, like the collar, and etched with the same sorts of symbols.

  Kathkur’s eyes widened at the sight of it. “No. You said it was not for me. You-”

  “You will submit,” said Jagun Ghen, raising the brass rod, “one way or another.”

  Kathkur shrieked and thrashed, ripping skin and flesh from his wrists, pulling against the chains.

  Jagun Ghen spoke an incantation, and the symbols etched in the brass rod he held flickered, flared, and then settled to a steady red glow. Vazhad had seen the rod only once before, when Argalath had first purchased it from a Thayan.

  The eladrin kicked at the basin with such force that the bones in one foot shattered-Vazhad heard them even over the screaming. Kathkur’s back arched, and the light from the rune on his forehead blazed, and then went out. The eladrin’s eyes rolled back in his head, a final tremor shook him, and he sagged. Only the chains kept him from falling on his face. He hung there, his chest heaving, and when he looked up, even Vazhad could see that the demon had gone.